10 Music documentaries you shouldn't miss 🎥

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

by Ron Howard 2016

Music documentary about the most famous band in the world, The Beatles, and their tours from 1963 to 1966. Then they held 250 concerts and lived on the move, writing new songs in vans in hotel rooms and releasing two albums a year.

The events surrounding their concert at New York's "Shea Stadium", which was held in 1965 in front of as many as 55,000 people, were also recorded.

A variety of interviews, music, archival footage and stories related to the phenomenon of The Beatles, the beloved band that forever marked the world music scene.

Jim Morrison - Last days in Paris

by Olivier Monssens ( 2022 )

Although it deals with Morrison's Paris period, the documentary also talks about the Doors, a band that more than many symbolized teenage rebellion and influenced rock music that was both soulful and epic, looking to the past, but also incredibly modern.

More than fifty years ago in Paris, on the night of July 2-3, 1971, the body of Jim Morrison, one of the most independent icons, the singer of the American group that changed the sound of rock, was found lifeless in the apartment where the singer stayed with his American girl Pamela Courson. The death, which only a handful of friends knew about, would be announced only a few days later.

Heart attack? A CIA conspiracy? Overdose? The secret will remain unsolved for a long time, but one thing is certain: that night Jim Morrison joined the 27 Club, free-spirited idols like Janis Joplin, Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix who were cut down by intemperance at the age of 27.

In addition to the circumstances of his death, the film will also tell the story of the man Jim Morrison became in the last months in Paris when he left his star band in the USA. He ran away with the hope of a new life with his literary role models, especially Rimbaud, and roaming the Parisian nights.

The story is told by those who met and spent time with Jim in the French capital, including Sam Bernett, art director
of the Rock'n'roll Circus club that Morrison frequented, war photographer Patrick Chauvel, Rosalie Varda and American musician Phil Steele.

Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things

by Leslie Woodhead ( 2018 )

This documentary tells the story of Ella Fitzgerald's life and reveals why many see her music as a summary of a turbulent century. The film follows Ella's career, which began at a young talent competition in 1934 at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem, and spanned five decades.

Her music, as well as her life, reflect all the turbulent passions and troubles of that time. Unlike conventional biographical films, this one tries to use pictures and music to evoke the atmosphere of that time and the environment in which she grew up artistically. The film features interviews with Smokey Robinson, Jamie Cullum, Tony Bennett, Norma Miller and Laura Mvule.

Billie 

by James Erskine ( 2020 )

Billie Holiday had one of the greatest voices of all time and changed the face of American music.  She was a woman of breath-taking talent and global popularity while also stirring controversy.  She started a notable rebellion singing “Strange Fruit” which exposed the realities of Black life in America and earned her powerful enemies.  Raw, emotional and brutally honest, Billie is filled with never-before-heard interviews from musical greats like Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sylvia Syms and Count Basie.

Nothing Compares

by Kathryn Ferguson ( 2022 )

The documentary "Nothing Compares" chronicles Sinéad O'Connor's meteoric success and examines how she used her voice at the height of her fame before her iconoclastic persona resulted in her exile from the world of pop music. Focusing on Sinéad's prophetic words and deeds from 1987 to 1993, the film brings us a rich portrait of this fearless pioneer through a contemporary feminist lens.

The documentary film "Nothing Compares" is full of archival material and brings us key videos of that era and concerts along with never-before-seen footage from that period.

The film is interspersed with a new interview with Sinéad, in which she reflects on the events in her own words and from today's perspective. Intimate conversations add to the film's rich content and offer additional insights from contemporary artists, musicians and social commentators, including broader themes from Irish history, politics and global activism.

In all this, they reflect on Sinéad's art, legacy and the mark she left. Regardless of her disappearance, her influence is great and powerful. She influenced other musicians to speak their mind, to express their views clearly and to use their public persona for activism and pointing out injustices in the world.

This was very clearly pointed out in the documentary by Chuck D from the band Public Enemy.

"Nothing Compares" does a great job of filling in some of the lost context surrounding O'Connor that any longtime fan will appreciate. In addition, Ferguson deliberately uses only voice-over interviews, including interviews with O'Connor, and helps bring the focus back to where it always should have been - on what Sinéad O'Connor is thinking and saying.

Don’t look back - documentary of Bob Dylan’s 1965 U.K. tour

Dean Martin: The King of Cool

by Tom Donahue 2021

Dean Martin was undoubtedly a brilliant star, and he dominated the world of popular culture for decades. This documentary is an investigative portrait of an underrated genius and his enduring cultural importance as a unique figure who showed everyone how to be "cool."

He was a master of improvisation, a giant of comedy, a movie star, perfectly elegant and one of the sweetest and most likable singers of the 20th century.

The Quiet One  ( Bill Wyman - Rolling Stones)

by Oliver Murray 2019

Throughout his three-decade career as a founding member of and bassist for The Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman was known to the world as the “quiet one” in the band. Now, the famously private music legend speaks out about his extraordinary life and experiences as part of “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.” Opening up his vast personal archive—a lifetime’s worth of previously unseen home movies, photographs, and memorabilia—Wyman reflects on his early years with The Stones, the band’s meteoric rise to fame, and his search for a sense of “normalcy” amidst the whirlwind of sex, drugs, and rebellion. Endearingly humble and down-to-earth, Wyman pulls back the curtain to offer a one-of-a-kind perspective on life as a reluctant rock star.

Getting It Back : The Story of Cymande 

2022

"Cymande" is a top band that you've probably never heard of, and this is an incredible and hitherto untold story about them.

The band from South London was founded by musicians who came to Great Britain from the Caribbean, members of the so-called of the Windrush generation, led by Patrick Patterson (guitar) and Steve Scipio (bass). Combining jazz, funk, soul and Caribbean rhythms, they created a new sound.

Despite the great success they achieved in the USA with their first three albums, in Britain they were met with prejudice and a lukewarm response and, disillusioned, disbanded in 1975. But their music lived on.

New generations of British and American musicians began to discover their revolutionary sound and to sample and cover their compositions, and their music gained new fans.

The story of these unsung heroes, illustrated with archival footage, is told in this film through recent interviews with the original band members, filmed over two years.

And yes, I never heard of them...